Sub-project: Fragmenta Bongarsiana
Start: March 2018
Status: In progress
Financed by: Burgerbibliothek Bern, swissuniversities, SNF
Description: Together with the Burgerbibliothek Bern, we have facilitated the digitization of approximately 150 fragments of parchment. Most of these are from the collection of Jacques Bongars (1554-1612), who had a philological interest in rare texts, as did Pierre Pithou (1539-1596) and especially Pierre Daniel (1530-1603), with whom Bongars was closely associated. Jacques Bongars and Pierre Daniel are among the earliest scholars to have shown an interest in fragments. The Bernese fragment collection is unique because it contains not only manuscript waste, but also a large number of manuscripts that have been transmitted in incomplete form, for example, with only a single quire or a part thereof to have survived. In the course of making these texts accessible through e-codices, many fragments were identified for the first time. Most of these were known texts or authors, but some spectacular new discoveries were made of previously unknown texts on biblical exegesis from the Carolingian epoch. In the coming years, the collection will be published in parallel in e-codices and in Fragmentarium.
All Libraries and Collections
Remnants of an Alcuin's Bible, written in Tours in the early 9th century; from the Dominican Monastery of Bern; around 1495 the remnants were used as pastedowns for various incunables by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volumes by various paths reached the Municipal Library of Bern and various libraries in Solothurn. Around 1945, the fragments BBB Cod. 756.59 (1 leaf), Cod. 756.70 (8 leaves and 1 strip) as well as Cod. 756.71 (2 leaves) were removed from the host volumes by Johannes Lindt; today they can be found in the Burgerbibliothek Bern (BBB). Also in situ, i.e., in incunables from the University Library Bern (MUE), is a further leaf (MUE Inc. I.20) or smaller fragments (MUE Inc. IV.77). In addition, the Central Library of Solothurn holds: Cod. S 458 (pastedowns) as well as S II 151 (detached fragments).
Online Since: 12/12/2019
Remnants of a manuscript of the Summarium Heinrici as well as of the glossary of plants appended thereto, with interlinear glosses in German. Prior to 1875, Hermann Hagen detached them from three book bindings from the Stadtbibliothek of Bern. Other parts are located in the Zentralbibliothek of Zurich and the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek of Bonn.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Folium from a manuscript of the Collectanea rerum memorabilium by Gaius Julius Solinus; it contains parts of the Descriptio Indiae. Prior to 1875, Hermann Hagen detached it from a host volume from the Stadtbibliothek of Bern.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Fragment of a manuscript that originated in Fulda around the second quarter of the 9th century, containing Cetius Faventinus’ (late 3rd/early 4th century) extracts from Vitruvius’ De Architectura. It cannot be determined when the codex left Fulda. Two Fulda library catalogs from the beginning and the middle of the 16th century still list a Faventinus manuscript.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
Bifolium from a manuscript of the Viaticus by Constantinus Africanus, from a handbook for traveling doctors, translated from Arabic. Prior to 1875, Hermann Hagen detached it from a host volume from the Stadtbibliothek of Bern.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Two bifolia from Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis, possibly originating from central Switzerland. Donated to the City Library of Bern in 1914 by the historian and librarian Carl Josef Benziger (1877-1951) from Einsiedeln.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
Single leaf from a Carolingian Bible, later used as book binding material. Place of origin unknown (possibly from southern Germany); also unknown are its provenance and the circumstances of how the fragment came to be in the Bern library.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Two fragments of leaves from a Thebaid manuscript by Statius, probably from Central Switzerland. Later used as binding manuscript waste for the print Hunger, Conrad: Unser liebe Frauw zue Einsidlen, Lucerne 1654, and owned by a Ueli Fässler around 1665. Acquired in 1920 by the student Ernst Burkhard at the Brockenhaus in Bern and donated to the City Library of Bern.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single leaf from a manuscript of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Hiob, perhaps written in Northern Italy, later used as book binding material. Provenance and acquisition of the manuscript are unknown.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Remnants of a manuscript of the Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach. In August 1928, Hans Bloesch detached it from codex Mss.h.h.XIV.144.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Bifolium from a manuscript of Ambrose’s Hexameron from the Upper Rhine area/Switzerland, later used as a book binding material. Provenance and acquisition of the fragment are unknown.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single leaf of a large-format manuscript of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Hiob, possibly made in Germany. Provenance and acquisition of the fragment are unknown
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single leaf of a manuscript of Gregory the Great’s Homiliae in Ezechielem, probably written in Alsace (Murbach?). Of unknown provenance, the fragment reached the City Library of Bern before 1674, and here it was removed from the host volume (MUE Klein p 92), probably in the 1930s.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single leaf of a manuscript that was probably written in France, containing letters by Pelagius. Origin unknown. As part of the collection of Leonhard Hospinian (MUE Hospinian 208), the fragment came to the City Library of Bern, where it was removed from the host volume in 1935.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Two fragments of a single leaf from a manuscript of Flavius Josephus’ Antiquitates Iudaicae. Place of origin and provenance of the fragments are unknown.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single leaf from a Bible that was perhaps produced in Eastern France; later it was used as binding for a 1561 printed volume from Strasbourg. Before 1674, the fragment came from unknown provenance to the City Library of Bern, where it was removed from the host volume (MUE Klein f 217) in October 1934.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single leaf from a manuscript of unknown provenance containing Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Hiob. The fragment arrived in Bern in 1632 as part of a printed volume (MUE Bong IV 251) that had been the property of Jacques Bongars; it was probably removed from the host volume in the 1930s.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single sheet of a collection of homilies, probably in two volumes, from the Dominican Monastery of Bern, which were used around 1495 by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter as pastedowns for various incunables that are currently held in Bern and Solothurn. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volume perhaps came into the possession of the Sterner family in Biel and further to Bern via the antiquarian bookshop Max Müller (BBB Mss.h.h.XXXIV.35).
Online Since: 07/14/2021
Single sheet of a collection of homilies, probably in two volumes, from the Dominican Monastery of Bern, which were used around 1495 by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter as pastedowns for various incunables that are currently held in Bern and Solothurn. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volume perhaps came into the possession of the Sterner family in Biel and further to Bern via the antiquarian bookshop Max Müller (BBB Mss.h.h.XXXIV.35).
Online Since: 07/14/2021
Fragments (1 bifolium, 1 single leaf) from a manuscript of Clement of Rome’s Recognitiones, possibly from Germany; around 1495 Johannes Vatter, bookbinder for the Dominican monastery of Bern, used them as pastedowns for volumes printed in Basel. After the dissolution of the monastery in 1528, the host volume (MUE Inc. I.88) found its way into the Bernese library under unknown circumstances. In February 1935 the fragments were removed by librarian Hans Bloesch.
Online Since: 07/02/2020